Cantargia licenses BioWa POTELLIGENT® Technology platform for production of lead product candidate

Cantargia AB (CANTA:SS) and BioWa Inc. today announced that Cantargia has acquired a non-exclusive license to the POTELLIGENT® Technology platform for the production of the proprietary product candidate CAN04.  The POTELLIGENT® Technology platform has been designed for research and development of antibody dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) enhanced antibodies. Commercial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

The POTELLIGENT® Technology platform will be used to produce Cantargia’s lead product candidate, the monoclonal antibody CAN04 directed against the target molecule IL1RAP. The molecule IL1RAP is expressed on both cancer stem cells and mature cancer cells. CAN04 has a mode of actioncombining the blocking of IL-1 signaling in the cancer cell and ADCC. By using the POTELLIGENT® Technology platform, a significantly enhanced ADCC activity can be obtained leading to increased efficacy.

“By utilizing BioWa’s POTELLIGENT® Technology, CAN04 can be produced with significantly higher potency than normally obtained in a standard production system”, says Göran Forsberg, CEO of Cantargia. “This will be a very important tool to augment the antitumor activity of CAN04 that enables state-of-the-art production technology”.

“We are extremely pleased that the value of our POTELLIGENT® Technology continues to be recognized by innovative companies such as Cantargia for their antibody programs in oncology,” said Yasunori Yamaguchi, President and CEO of BioWa. ”We are very excited to work together with Cantargia on their promising antibody program”.

About Cantargia
Cantargia AB (reg.no. 556791-6019) is a biotech company that is developing an antibody-based cancer treatment, which attacks cancer stem cells as well as mature cancer cells. The original discovery by the research team behind Cantargia was the overexpression of a specific target molecule, IL1RAP, in cancer stem cells in patients with leukaemia that is not found in normal stem cells in the bone marrow. In preclinical studies (in vitro and in vivo) the antibody, targeted at IL1RAP, has been shown to have two potential mechanisms of action, which are complementary. The company has selected a product candidate for future studies in humans. Preclinical trials with Cantargia’s antibodies have shown a potent antileukaemic effect. Parallel studies have shown an even higher expression of IL1RAP in certain solid tumours. In 2015 Cantargia will be carrying out the studies required for authorisation of clinical trials.

Sedermera Fondkommission is the certified advisor for Cantargia AB

About BioWa
BioWa, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co., Ltd, a leading biopharmaceutical company in Japan, and is the exclusive worldwide licensor of the AccretaMab® platform. The AccretaMab® platform consists of POTELLIGENT® and COMPLEGENT® Technologies, creating a superior antibody molecule with enhanced ADCC and Complement-Dependent Cytotoxicity (“CDC”) activities. BioWa is offering POTELLIGENT® and COMPLEGENT® Technologies to partners under a license to maximize the value of these technologies. Together with Kyowa Hakko Kirin, BioWa is committed to promote ADCC/CDC enhanced monoclonal antibody-based therapeutics to fight cancer and other life-threatening and debilitating diseases. For more information about BioWa, visit our web site at www.biowa.com. POTELIGEO®, POTELLIGENT®, COMPLEGENT®, and AccretaMab® are the trademarks of Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co., Ltd. All rights are reserved.

About POTELLIGENT® Technology
POTELLIGENT® Technology improves potency and efficacy of antibody therapeutics by enhancing Antibody-Dependent-Cellular Cytotoxicity (“ADCC”), one of the major mechanisms of action for antibody therapeutics. POTELLIGENT® Technology involves the reduction of the amount of fucose in the carbohydrate structure of an antibody using a proprietary fucosyl transferase-knockout CHO cell line as a production cell. Research shows that POTELLIGENT® Technology dramatically enhances ADCC activity of an antibody in vitro, and significantly increases potency and efficacy of the antibody in vivo. A number of POTELLIGENT® antibodies are being investigated in human clinical trials. On May 29 2012, Kyowa Hakko Kirin, Co. Ltd. launched POTELIGEO®. This milestone event represents a critical validation point for the POTELLIGENT® Technology.

Cantargia Contact Information

Göran Forsberg, Ph.D. Assoc Prof.
CEO
Telephone: +46 46 275 62 60
E-mail: goran.forsberg@cantargia.com

BioWa Contact Information

Yasunori Yamaguchi, Ph.D.
President and CEO
Telephone: +1 858 952 7200
www.kyowa-kirin.com/biowa/contact_us/index.html

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